Education for library and information management careers in business and financial services

INTRODUCTION

Corporate library management is in crisis. Top jobs turn over frequently. Sometimes new library managers are general administrators with financial backgrounds and are not librarians. Relatively few librarians aspire to top jobs. Other warning signs are easy to miss. For example, the profession accepts the small size of most corporate libraries as a function of subject specialization. At the same time, many librarians envy other managers whose functional areas grow as they progress beyond their original position parameters.

Corporate library management is in crisis because too many library directors lack substance. How has this happened? This article will begin by answering this question. To do so, it develops a historical perspective on the current management environment in corporate libraries. This will receive considerable emphasis because relatively few professionals are aware of the profound nature of the changes that have occurred in late twentieth-century business libraries. Next, the article will discuss library science education and assess its strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of contemporary corporate library management. Since people become managers by doing management jobs, staff development issues will be pervasive.

THE RISE OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

Between 1980 and 1990, corporate libraries changed dramatically. This change is the key to understanding the library management crisis and warrants a comparison of corporate libraries then and now. In 1980, corporate library management focused on human resources and library operations. Library managers hired quality staff and organized their work. Most library staff were reference librarians who found information for clients on demand. Expert reference work was the library's primary client service and this service was the hallmark of special libraries. Resource development activities were relatively less important because clients lacked time to use collections and adequate collection space was often scarce. Many first rate service-oriented corporate libraries had no catalog because the associated effort was deemed inappropriate to collection size. Libraries generally lacked advanced technology. However, telephones, wire machines, typewriters, copiers, and microfilm readers had been introduced over the years. But the large mainframe and minicomputer applications typical of the period were absent from all but the largest libraries serving major scientific research organizations with an exceptional level of systems orientation. Online databases were still relatively new. Few in number, they were perceived as supplemental sources to be searched at simple terminals by only the most highly experienced staff. Terminals were frequently located in dedicated rooms and sometimes behind locked doors. Overall, corporate library costs were low. When viewed as a percentage of corporate revenue, they were actually insignificant. This meant that financial management was not an important component of library management. The biggest expense in almost every library was for reference staff. Resource expense was usually quite small. Quite naturally, top librarians came from the reference ranks. And, while they prepared annual budgets, managers knew that if reference service was good and users were happy the budget would be approved.

By 1990, financial management had become a basic library management competency. Most employees were still highly proficient reference librarians who found information on demand for clients. However, it was common for them to disperse hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in the normal course of making professional judgments. Resource management activities were highly automated and the more talented technical services people could independently develop and deliver information products directly to clients. Top corporate libraries had as many microcomputers as people. Overall, corporate library costs had increased substantially. Sometimes they were 1 percent to 2 percent of the sponsoring business units' revenue. This figure was astonishing given

that MIS expense was usually 6 percent to 7 percent of revenue in information intensive industries (Erbschloe, 1992, p. 3). The library budget looked quite different, too. The salary line, to be sure, was bigger. Not only had the head count increased, but base salaries had grown at a rate greater than that of inflation--perhaps for the first time in the history of the profession. On the other hand, resource expense was now two to three times greater than salary expense. Resource managers with good analytical and systems skills now had strong backgrounds for top jobs. And although good reference service and satisfied customers were still the heart of the library, they would not make budget approval a foregone conclusion.

The more costly 1990 corporate library and the closely related importance of managing it financially were caused by the proliferation of information technology in corporations. Sometime after 1982, electronic databases, microcomputers, LANs, and third party applications unleashed unprecedented growth in corporate library expense. The new technology also tended to establish direct links among information use, resource expense, and associated staff time and skill level. This had a dramatic impact on corporate libraries and library management.